


Noumenal

by Coyotebee



Category: One Direction
Genre: Death, Guardian Angels, M/M, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coyotebee/pseuds/Coyotebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a person dies, they're sent somewhere to save somebody else before they go. Zayn and Liam are both near death and try to save each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inundation

Zayn is drowning.

He's in a lake. Not much of an expanse, really. When he opened his eyes under the water, the first thing he saw was a wall of rock ahead of him.

He doesn't know how to swim. To him, this isn't a lake, nor an ocean. This is a whole world of water. Endless. There's sky though, and it breathes. It breathes, it breathes, and he's not.

He gets every joint in his limbs to bend. Over and over again. Move, go up, don't sink. And he's sinking. He needs air soon.

The water isn't water anymore. It's a force that has encased him, filling his insides, doesn't matter what it's made of. All it is, is what it's not -- air. He feels strong at least. Before he fell, his legs were tired, and now they aren't. They keep kicking, and they do it easily.

For a while. Then his desperation to breathe intensifies. There's no air.

There's no air. No air.

He's stopped moving.

His chest hurts, it's gone heavy, it's full of no air.

Blackness comes from both sides of him. These masses move in on each other, to join and cover him. His mind dims. There's no panic anymore, no petrified search for breath, and whatever is surrounding him could be anything at all, because the only thought left is that this is the moment before death. Here he is, already.

***

Zayn sees himself.

He floats in greenish water. He's astoundingly small. His eyes are half open, but they don't see. His arms stretch and suspend themselves lazily in front of him, and it seems like he's a little bit alive -- the current arcs every extension of him, including the tips of his hair which swirl in one slow-moving mass.

Another body is beyond him -- now that's life. It's his sister. She has plunged a few feet in the lake, bubbling it. She's swimming back up.

Zayn doesn't know where this knowledge comes from, he simply knows it: His sister is trying to save him, that's the third time she's plunged down. He's too deep in the water now. She thinks of her muscles, feels they have energy left, more than they should, and she's amazed by that. She plans to take another gulp and go down again.

Seeing her, his love for her becomes heavier than the water. He's always loved her that much, but it's been brought to the foreground.

Zayn, the one who's thinking all of this, realizes what he is because he has no mouth to smile with -- he's detached, not of a body and not grounded in anything. He sees, but he has no eyes to do so. He's in the water, but he's not drowning in it.

Everything in sight starts to glow. It gets brighter and brighter, and all the green of the water goes away. All around now, is empty whiteness.

There's more that Zayn knows: He hasn't died yet. He's near it though. And there's many others who are about to die -- he can describe them, they have names, and he knows where they are and why they're dying. It doesn't overwhelm him at all; he has space for all that thought.

Though he doesn't have a body, he feels like something's pressing him. It wants him out.

And Zayn doesn't know what's after this, only what's before it, so that's where he'll have to go.

He's suddenly very, very wet, and his lungs are taking in air, and his spine is holding him up so he can stand. He looks around and sees he's in a room of flames. Something else he had never learned: There's someone called Liam in here and he'll burn.


	2. Combustion

Zayn sees him through a solid patch of deep orange. He's laying on the floor, underneath an open window, curled up tight.

The water dampening Zayn's skin doesn't react to the high heat. Zayn feels no heat at all. The thick black smoke in the room doesn't do anything to him either. Yet he's back in his body or at least some kind of shadow of it. Impervious to pain, what it can do is unconstricted.

He goes through the flame.

More of them snatch Liam's shoes. They're growing and overtaking the room, lashing the walls. Liam's trying to lever himself up with his arms. His near-unconscious state is paralyzing him. It's the smoke, acting like water, flooding the air and his lungs, shutting him down.

He has enough awareness to see Zayn. Zayn can tell from his eyes that he registers his presence -- they focus beyond him, then snap onto his figure and follow his movement as he goes to kneel by his legs.

Using his hands, Zayn covers the blaze on his shoes.

No burn. There is nothing. The flames taper off completely from his touch and sizzle.

"I'm going to get you out," says Zayn.

They're in a small apartment building on the third floor. Zayn sees the entire scene in his mind. It's the apartment next to them that's the source of the blaze. The fire escape is blocked off, and the whole hallway is torched. There's no route without fire.

The lobby is clear though. He needs to get Liam there, then out of the place entirely.

Things creak and crackle.

He'll have to drag Liam out. His strength would've been an obstacle in his original body, but it isn't in this one. He feels he can move ceaselessly. A whistle could blow and he'd run forever.

Zayn tugs at Liam's arms, spreads them apart, and he pulls him up from behind. He locks him against his front. Like this, Liam's whole length is slack and arched. His feet are angled away from the floor, and the back of his head rests on Zayn's diaphragm.

His right arm hangs out. From wrist to elbow, boils are clustered together, fighting for space. Zayn can't do anything about that.

He glances behind himself. The first step Zayn will take will be into the flame. This will work. He knows it.

He shuffles back, and the moment the fire whips at him, it pulls itself away and extinguishes. It leaves no smoke. All it does is shrivel into non-existence to create a safe space of a few feet for Zayn and Liam to step through.

Zayn continues on into the flame and smoke. Little by little, the fire shrinks to make way for him and Liam. The heels of Liam's shoes slip smoothly over the floor as they make way, though the floor has become a thin layer of rippled, melted black substance.

He reaches a door, the wood of it smouldering. Two kicks from Zayn and it swings open and shows that beyond it is more fire, dense and tall.

While Zayn knows the path they need to take, there's little confidence to muster when it's all a matter of time. Nearly every wall of the building is being lacerated by the blaze, set on having it fold onto itself, and Zayn can't tell if Liam is still conscious. He's all dead weight, his neck won't support his head...

Zayn gets through the hall and there's another door to go through. Zayn shoves his back into it, works the bar handle with his elbow and gets it open with a thud. He rushes in. As he anticipated, the air is clear here, the one tiny space that hasn't been overrun yet. It's a closet, a couple brooms, bins and towels around.

He lays Liam on the tile and says, "Liam, breathe. You can breathe here."

He shuts the door and it makes the closet completely dark. Zayn hears Liam sucking in shallow breaths and letting them out. It's done quick, then he has a short coughing fit. Zayn hoists him up against his front like before. He remains weak and listless.

This is the only time they can afford. They can't stay there, wait for Liam to come to full conscious while the building razes. And the closet is filled with cleaning chemicals, cans ready to pop.

He hauls Liam back through the door and into the hall. Another few yards and they're in the stairway. 

The steps are tricky. He holds Liam the same way and walks backward.

They make it down one flight, and fortunately the fire hasn't reached the first landing. Zayn positions himself to go down the next set of stairs. One the third step, Liam's weight shifts too suddenly onto him and they fall backward.

Zayn's spine collides with the steps and they slide the whole way down them. Zayn clutches Liam tighter, presses his head firmly to his chest so his neck won't break. Protect. It's the sole drive he has. It's instinctive, the nature of his form, why he himself, as they slip roughly downward, can't fracture.

They smack into a wall. Zayn immediately checks on Liam. Nothing is visibly wrong with him.

He comes to for a moment. His eyes delve into the corners of the stairwell, then onto Zayn's face.

"We're almost out. Hold on," Zayn says.

He lifts him up again.

Next flight. The smoke is thick again and the sound of searing is louder. When they get to the bottom of these steps, Zayn has to check on Liam again.

He's completely knocked out.

One more hall to go down and they'll be in the lobby. Zayn will get this done.

He drags Liam through more of the inferno. As they get further down the hall, he sees bulky silhouettes and he hears spraying and gushing.

"Hey!" Zayn calls out. "Hey!"

He sees them turn toward him. One of them doubles back.

Zayn steps out of the fire with Liam and lays him on the floor. The firefighters peer at them. Through their masks, he can't see their faces. Their stillness is what shows their mystification.

"Take him, get him --"

Zayn suddenly feels a heaviness in his chest. A great rush of air is launched into his lungs, making him gasp.


	3. Oxygenation

His arms are outstretched, and his feet touch nothing. Suspension. Something cold besieges his whole frame and slows his movement. Water. The lake.

He's not breathing right. He's in his original body, the one that needs air and has gone too long without it.

Something's clamped to his mouth and nose. Air forces its way down his chest. All his focus is on respiration. There's oxygen coming from somewhere, from a moving mass in front of him, and he needs more of it.

He gets another gulp. Still, he feels his brain and body is fading.

Then he's being lifted. There's a firm grasp around his wrist. He's going up.

Up.

Where he can breathe.

An arm slips itself around his waist, and yes, he hasn't stopped heading up. He flies, he sails...

For too long.

His body demands more air. He's running through his last thoughts again, aware he's approaching the close...

***

Water spews out of Zayn's throat and the second its out, he heaves the air in, does it noisily. The inside of his neck -- it feels so wide and open. He can't control what his lungs do: They haul in the atmosphere and fill themselves up in quick little sips and then he's coughing from overindulgence.

He starts breathing hard, deep, and steady. A clearer consciousness rolls back into him -- he's lying on a boardwalk, and his chest aches, his father is muttering prayers, and he's extremely cold. There's a blanket around him, but he continues to shake. He lifts his head to see his surroundings better.

His mother and two of his sisters kneel on either side of him. His third sister is down a ways, her mouth covered, too scared to come close. They're blurs to him; he's not seeing properly.

Zayn rests his head back down. His hair rustles against fabric, against bone and heat -- it's a person's knees that he's laid his head onto.

He looks up and sees Liam.

Zayn would thank him if his jaw wasn't locked from how cold he is. Every layer of him is iced over, that is, what layers he can feel. Some parts are numb. Fingers. Cheeks.

He shakes violently.

"Oh God... Keep him warm, please do something to keep him warm," his mother says to Liam.

At first, Liam takes Zayn's hands and holds them up to bunch together with his. One his right arm, there are no boils. The skin is faultless and extraordinarily hot, comfortably so, not singing. It isn't enough, however, and Liam realizes this.

He gently removes his legs from under Zayn's head and lays himself beside him. He slides under the blanket and there's a blissful surge in temperature. Liam presses himself along Zayn's right side, and reaches over to rub Zayn's arm.

It's so pleasant that Zayn rolls himself onto his side to be closer to Liam, all that warmth. He tilts his head forward so his forehead touches Liam's breastbone, and the hot air drifts over his face. A moment later, Liam's chin presses onto the top of his head.

Zayn's muscles continue to spasm, but it's no longer from the cold, it's from the shock of heat, that it's too much to take in. It's wonderful. Engulfing. It spreads through him and wakes him up, and slips into his wide-open chest, restarting his pulse. Every organ is working, all his joints have loosened. There's a rushing sound going through his ears. He feels details. The blanket has a few crumbs on it, his shoes are damp, and his family's around him, and beyond them, there's the sky. He gets to be underneath it for a while more, in a solid and grounded body that feels things.

He shifts his legs to find Liam's. He puts a foot over his shin for a little more direct warmth. His shoulders relax, and his fingers aren't numb anymore. In this cocoon, Zayn begins to weep.

Before he's done, Liam suddenly shudders and disappears.

Fully alive, Zayn's knowledge is limited again. He doesn't know where Liam went.

He'll find out. He'll look into the news.

The lake water splashes against the boardwalk.

For now, the one thing to do is to get up. He's capable of it, he'll make his limbs shift, and nothing external will prevent him from doing this.


End file.
